India world's largest pulses importer and consumer

NEW DELHI: In what is likely to come as a relief to the high inflation-embattled government, the farm ministry said today that India had harvested a record 235.88 million tonnes (mt) of foodgrains in the 2010-11 (July-June) crop year, beating the earlier high reached in 2008-09 at 234.47mt. Today's estimates are higher by over 3mt compared to the output projections in the Second Advanced Estimates released in February. That stood at 232.07 mt.

Current foodgrain output projections are also a good 18mt above the 218.11 mt of drought year 2009-10

Releasing the estimates in record time here at the start of the two day Kharif (summer sown) Campaign conference which strategies for the new crop year, farm minister Sharad Pawar pegged foodgrain output at 235.88 mt. "Wheat at 84.27 mt and pulses at 17.29 mt are also the highest recorded production ever,"he said.

Inflation was pegged at 9.5% for the week ending March 19 and the government, including FM Pranab Mukherjee, PM Manmohan Singh and the Planning Commission, are banking heavily on these crop estimates to temper the impact of inflation and high food prices from this month onward, on the back of good food grain stocks and the urgent need to offload earlier and overflowing stocks into subsidised grain schemes in the open market and through welfare schemes..

There's also a silver lining to the Third Advanced Crop Estimates released today: wheat production this Rabi marketing season and the output of pulses, among the highest imported agri commodity annually, have hit a record high. Wheat production estimates have been upped by a good 3mt to 84.27mt compared to February projections.

And while higher pulses output__ up by nearly 1mt to a record 17.29 mt__may not reduce the percentage of import dependence in the longer term (yearly consumption and demand is also going up in tandem with higher output), it may nonetheless make India's bargaining power on import prices better for the present. Pulses production in 2009-10 was pegged at 14.66 mt compared to the record high of 14.91 mt achieved in 2003-04.

India is the world's largest pulses importer and consumer.

Production estimates for winter rice and coarse cereals have also been revised upwards in comparision to earlier estimates, indicating that the price line for several manufactured processed food products from multi grain noodles to biscuits to different types of snack food could be held.Coarse cereal output has been upwardly revised to 40.21mt (33.55mt last year) compared to the earlier estimates despite drought in parts of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal and bad weather in other part of the south and west which produce coarse cereals.

Rice production has been upped to 94.11 mt, much higher than 2009-10's 89.09mt although it is only slightly higher than the last estimates..Rice, interestingly enough, is not just summer staple for this country but, with increasing production of processed snack and regular food over the last few years, is being used in dozens of different food products.

Today's estimates peg oilseeds production at 30.25 mt for 2010-11 compared to 24.8 mt last year. Sugarcane output, the subject of high interest and much controversy in the last few years, has been pegged 340.55 mt compared to 292 mt last year. Cotton output is projected at a record high of 33.92 million bales (170 kg each bale) against 24.2 million bales last year.